Summit
by soapboxer
Summary: Batman and the GCPD team up to protect a needed Gotham-hosted global economic summit from a group of anarchists determined to destroy it to prevent city growth.


Summit

Batman

"I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be." The Batman; The Dark Knight (2008)

1

Annual Global Economic Summit; Gotham Convention Center

The largest economic conference in the world was being held unusually late for two primary reasons: to be ready in the event a group of non-Joker related anarchists made good on their conveyed threat to attack the summit and to better enable the Dark Knight to engage them should it be needed.

Commissioner Gordon was personally overseeing security for the summit and had the MCU on it as well.

All they could do now was wait.

Three hours into the summit, a GCPD sniper spotted a suspicious vehicle advancing down a closed off avenue for the convention center.

The sniper requested permission to fire on the vehicle to stop it...

"I'm on it," said Bruce over his shared comlink with the police.

Running free from the last building rooftop, Bruce deployed his cape to glide a certain distance and then dove in the night for the suspect car that accelerated upon drawing near the convention center area.

Bruce angled his descent to close the gap swiftly. He landed in a crouch on the car's rear trunk. He counted three suspects in the vehicle – two in the front and one in the back.

The rear thug spotted him and his eyes widened. "Jesus! It's him!"

Bruce used the moment of fearful hesitation on the thug's part to bring up his grapnel. He waited until the backseat thug brought up his assault rifle before firing the grapnel.

The grapnel's claw punched through the rear window, shattering it, latched onto the rear thug's weapon, and ripped it free from his grasp as Bruce retracted the grapnel cable via its powerful winch motor.

The driver swerved to try to knock Bruce off the car, but he entered through the rear window, kicking the back seated thug in the face and taking him out before the driver's desperate action could have any desired effect.

In the backseat area now, Bruce jabbed the front seat passenger thug in the face to stun him. The driver brought up a pistol to shoot Bruce but he chopped firmly at the driver's wrist to dislodge it from his grasp. The passenger thug brought out a military issue combat knife to stab Bruce in the face but Bruce used his gauntlet fins to intercept/hook the knife. Bruce then twisted his wrist and dislodged the knife from the thug's hand.

It was at this moment that Bruce spotted a remote bomb detonator rolling around in the old car's center ashtray.

Grabbing the long hair of the passenger thug, Bruce smashed his cowled head into the thug's to take him out next.

The driver grabbed the detonator and brought it up to use...

Bruce intercepted his hand at the thumb and snapped it. The driver howled in pain while Bruce removed the detonator.

Snarling, the driver floored the vehicle for the convention center. Bruce hooked the driver in the side of the head, taking him out. He then set him atop the other thug, giving him a clear way to reach the steering wheel.

Pulling back, Bruce then lunged forward, twisting over to be face up as he went over the front seats and landed with his caped back atop the neutralized thugs. Awkwardly positioned upside down in the car, he used one hand to remove the thug's foot from the accelerator and the other he planted on the brake. He pushed back on the brake pedal, but not too hard so not to cause the car to flip over and likely explode.

The car screeched to a halt.

Bruce retrieved the detonator and crawled out the driver side window. Cops were running toward him as he did so.

Looking at both ends of the car, he recollected from landing atop the trunk that the weight there hadn't felt right. He moved to the trunk area, crouched by the trunk lock, reached for a batarang, and used a bladed end to breach the old lock.

Bruce gently lifted the trunk lid.

It was packed with improvised explosives. Studying the wiring configuration, Bruce thought on the best way to disable it.

By now, a number of cops surrounded the Dark Knight.

One of them saw the explosives, and said, "Holy shit."

Bruce reached for a set of wires to the right side...

A cop set a hand on his arm. "Shouldn't we wait for bomb disposal?"

Bruce ignored the cop, reached for that bundle of wires, and ripped them out.

Many of them gasped, but nothing bad happened.

"Status? Somebody, report?" said Gordon over the comlink.

Bruce held the wires before the cops to see.

A cop said, "We're good here, sir. Batman stopped these guys cold before they could unleash their hellfire."

"Jim, are there any other vehicles like this still out there?" said Bruce.

"No. We're looking good, but we can't allow the summit to continue after this..."

"Yes, we can," said Bruce. "This is what they want. They want us to be on edge – to be afraid. We don't give them that."

"But the mayor..."

"We keep this to ourselves for now."

Gordon remained silent.

Bruce said, "Gotham needs this summit as much as the world does, Jim. Jobs are needed here; the local economy needs rejuvenated. These thugs want to damage the city's social fabric beyond repair. We don't give them that and we don't let anyone know what happened here until after the summit's ending."

"And if more happens that we can't contain, then what?" said Gordon.

"We deal with it then and live with it."

"All right. Secure that scene and remain alert, everyone. This night is far from over."

The summit was also three days/nights long. Bruce had no doubt that whoever was leading this criminal operation had more mayhem planned. It was someone new, for his rogues were all locked up at Arkham and Blackgate. Whether it was someone super criminal worthy or not didn't matter. This action alone proved their fanatical resolve, and Bruce intended to find them and take them all down before they could try again and actually kill people.


End file.
